


rosemary & rue

by oryx



Category: The Last Story
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood, Gen, Original Character Death(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The origin of claustrophobia, and the chance meeting between a drunkard and a flirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rosemary & rue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rubylily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubylily/gifts).



> oh god this was supposed to be your main gift but it got wayyy out of hand ("well grim" as syrenne might put it)  
> thanks for introducing me to the last story btw! i'd never even heard of it before i got your assignment! :o

All the women in her platoon have a sad story to tell.

 

“Me mum died when I was a kid,” Narsha says. “Plague went round our village, y’know? One second she’s fine, the next she’s lyin’ on the ground, dead as a doornail. Her face was all… bloated and mottled. Nasty business, it was. Dunno how I survived it meself.”

 

They’re gathered in the barracks, around a meager fire that flickers half-heartedly in the grate. It’s only autumn, but the cold winds from the North have blown in early this year, and their breath turns to white in the frigid air. (Mere footsoldiers like themselves are always given the draftiest quarters.)

 

In the corner, Beatriz glances up from sharpening her knives. “My dad used to whack us around,” she says. “Me and my brothers and my mum. Til one day my mum got sick of it all and smothered ‘im with a pillow while he was sleepin’. Got sent off to the stockades for that one, she did. Never saw ‘er again.”

 

A few sympathetic murmurs echo from the back of the room, and Jessalin looks about ready to launch into a woeful tale of her own.

 

“Fuck,” Syrenne mutters, rolling her eyes. “What is this, some kinda bloody pity party? You lot can be such downers, I swear.”

 

They all turn to look at her.

 

“What’re you actin’ all tough for, eh?” Saskia says, pursing her lips incredulously. “Like you don’t have nothin’ depressing in your past?”

 

Syrenne thinks about this for a long moment.

 

“Nah,” she says finally, and shrugs. “Not a thing.”

 

.

 

.

 

She knows she’s lucky. She’s heard her comrades’ stories, after all. She’s seen atrocities and injustices – innocent people tormented by so-called “soldiers of the Empire,” orphan kids begging for scraps on street corners, pale-faced refugees from villages razed to the ground by bandits. But these things have always felt distant from herself, a reality wholly separate from her own.

 

As it were, her reality goes something like this:

 

She is born to parents who are poor, but not suffocatingly so. Their house is often in various stages of disrepair. They own very little – a small plot of land and the clothes on their backs. Some days they go to bed hungry. But mostly, they do alright.

 

Syrenne grows up playing with boys and hating them all the while. They are rough and crass yet also cowardly, all talk and no action, their every word a superficial display of bravado. The pride with which they speak their empty boasts sets her teeth on edge.

 

“Men are full of hot air at any age,” says the Village Elder, an old woman named Lailah, and Syrenne is inclined to agree.

 

When she is seventeen her parents force her into a dress and try to fob her off on the blacksmith’s boy down the lane. They tell her that he’ll be a good husband – a provider, strong and resilient, with enough brains in his head to keep them out of the poorhouse. At this, Syrenne can’t help but laugh. The blacksmith’s boy is a lout, plain and simple. Poor sod wouldn’t know a business opportunity from a punch in the face (“nor a woman’s head from her arse,” Lailah whispers, cackling all the while).

 

And so Syrenne leaves. There is nothing dramatic about her departure. There’s no tearful goodbyes or fond parting words. One day she merely packs up her meager belongings, hitches the first ride out of town, and never once looks back.

 

She gets a job waiting tables at a seedy tavern in the city. It goes well enough, ‘til the day some drunken oaf grabs her tits and she whacks him over the head with a barstool. Afterwards she gets approached by a man dressed in uniform – asks her if she’s ever considered putting her natural strength to good use. Scribbles directions to the headquarters of the city militia on a scrap of paper and tells her to swing by if she’s in need of employment.

 

“So what?” she says. “I’d be getting paid to knock people’s heads in?”

 

The man raises an eyebrow, lips quirking into a bemused smile.

 

“Well,” he says, “something like that.”

 

.

 

.

 

It was supposed to be an ordinary night watch. Patrol the streets, keep an eye on the local organized crime hotspots, make sure those blasted Reptids aren’t scuttling about in the waterways. The usual.

 

So when Syrenne sees the smoke in the distance, and hears the first cries for help echoing across the square, her first thought is ‘fuck no.’ Rescuing civilians from blazing infernos is not in her job description.

 

And yet it’s not like she can just stand idly by.

 

Jessalin sighs exasperatedly when their eyes meet. “You intent on playin’ the hero, eh?”

 

“Piss off,” Syrenne mutters. “I’m just gonna go see if they need someone to… I dunno. Haul water or some’n.”

 

Marco stares at the two of them, realization dawning on his (vaguely insipid) face.

 

“You aren’t thinkin’ of getting involved, are you?” He laughs nervously. “That’s not our place! We’re… We’re just s’posed to patrol the town. Nobody said anything about jumping into burning buildings!”

 

Syrenne sneers at him. “Why don’t you run along back to the barracks then, little boy? Leave the real work to those who can bloody well handle it!”

 

And without another word, she turns sharp on her heel and starts to run.

 

.

 

She’s really not qualified for this.

 

That is the most prominent thought swimming through her mind as she cautiously climbs up the burning stairwell. She’s not qualified for this, she shouldn’t be here, Marco was right all along, that utter twat, he was right and she ought to have thought this through before diving in headfirst like she always, always does. Her eyes are burning. The air is thick with smoke, and despite the wet rag pressed against her mouth it’s getting harder and harder to draw breath.

 

She’s about to give up and make a run for it when she hears something – a faint voice, barely audible above the crackling of the flames. Someone must still be trapped. There’s a door at the end of the hall that she hasn’t tried yet, and she picks her way towards it, wary of where she puts her feet.

 

There is someone in the room – a woman, collapsed on the floor, arms outstretched as she tries in vain to crawl away from the blaze. When Syrenne kneels down next to her, her eyes shine with relief, and despite her obvious weakness her fingers are like a vice around Syrenne’s wrist. Neither of them bother with words. Syrenne doubts the woman is even capable.

 

She hauls the woman to her feet, supporting her waist, and it is then that she feels it. A faint yet threatening tremor. The entire house seems to shudder around them, walls trembling and creaking, floorboards shivering beneath their feet. And beyond that an ominous groan, like that of a dying animal.

 

Syrenne stops, panic pulsing through her veins, and glances up.

 

.

 

She can’t move. Her legs are caught beneath a ceiling beam, and her left arm is pinned at her side, trapped under a particularly heavy piece of brick. Debris presses down on her chest. There’s dust in her eyes, and on her tongue, and still the fire continues to rage all around her, flames creeping ever closer, searing heat licking at her skin. Lack of oxygen makes her thoughts muddled and slow despite the adrenaline pounding in her ears. She can’t think, she can’t focus, she’s trapped in a burning house under the remains of a collapsed roof and her mind refuses to _work_ , dammit.

 

And then, strangely enough, there is something moist and sticky pooling against her cheek.

 

She turns her head with some effort. In her confusion she had all but forgotten about the woman, but there she is, only a stone’s throw away, trapped under the fallen wreckage same as Syrenne.

 

With a jagged wooden spike impaled straight through her throat.

 

The woman opens her mouth and blood bubbles from her lips, pours from the gaping wound on her neck, in stark contrast to the sickly whiteness of her skin. Syrenne feels a scream lying heavy on the back of her tongue but has no air in her lungs left to voice it. The woman is trying to breathe but she can’t, all that emerges is a wet, sickly gurgle, she’s choking on her own blood and the spark of life in her eyes in quickly fading. Her arm is free and she reaches out to Syrenne pleadingly with her blood-smeared fingers but she is too far away, and even if she weren’t what could she do? What could she do, she’s too weak to help, she can’t even move, most likely they will both die here beneath the wreckage and –

 

Syrenne wakes with a jolt.

 

She thrashes about frantically for a good minute before she is able to take stock of her surroundings. Her heartbeat slows gradually, then, and she disentangles her trembling fingers from the sheets. Her hair is damp with sweat, plastered to her forehead, and she brushes it from her eyes with the back of her hand.

 

She’s in a bed in the militia infirmary. That much is obvious. How she got there is another matter entirely. Perhaps a training accident, she thinks desperately. Or a sickness – she vaguely recalls some snot-nosed street rat sneezing on her a few days past.

 

But then the pain hits, sharp and throbbing, and along with it comes realization.

 

It wasn’t a nightmare, or a feverish delusion. It was real. It happened.

 

She leans back against the pillows and swallows hard, willing herself not to cry.

 

.

 

.

 

A broken ankle, two broken ribs, a fractured hand. Some mild head trauma. Burns on her legs, but nothing that won’t heal.

 

“Must have some god or another watchin’ over you,” the old nurse says. “That kinda luck ain’t human, girly.”

 

“… Luck?” Syrenne echoes, staring blankly out the window at the tiny patch of sky.

 

If this is what it means to be lucky, the world must’ve gone wrong somewhere.

 

“Don’t have any medicine for the pain, m’afraid,” the nurse says. “They still haven’t fixed the mountain pass from Silvermoor, so none o’ the transports are getting through. We got some whiskey, though. It sure ain’t a remedy, but it’ll dull your hurts right quick. You interested?”

 

She’s about to say no. Never been fond of alcohol herself – hates the way it burns her throat on the way down. But then her ankle throbs, and she inhales sharply only to feel a stab of pain in her solar plexus. Fucking broken ribs.

 

“Yeah,” she hisses between gritted teeth. “Yeah, give it here.”

 

(She doesn’t mean to down half the bottle, but such things are inevitable, really, when it aches just to breathe.)

 

.

 

Jessalin visits her the next day; says they’re giving her an “Honorable Discharge,” though to Syrenne it sounds about the same as “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

 

“We’re all moving out in a few days time – helpin’ with a siege against a Reptid colony on the Estershore. Prolly take two months or more. That’s why you’re gettin’ the boot, y’know? Since you won’t be fit in time, they just said to hell with it. Didn’t want to pay your wages if they didn’t ‘ave to. It’s right fucked up, is what it is.”

 

Syrenne smiles faintly. “Nah,” she says. “S’okay. I was gettin’ tired of playing soldier anyhow. I’ll find another gig somewhere. You know me.”

 

An uncomfortable silence falls over them. Jessalin folds her hands in her lap only to unfold them again. The ticking of the clock on the wall seems overloud as it counts out each awkward second.

 

“You’re the one who pulled me out, right?” Syrenne says finally. “I guess… I guess I ought to say thanks.”

 

Jessalin shrugs, averting her gaze. “Forget it,” she says. “You would’ve done the same for me.”

 

“Yeah,” Syrenne murmurs. She certainly would’ve, though whether she would anymore is another question entirely.

 

Another silence, this one thankfully short.

 

“There was… There was a woman in there with me,” Syrenne says tentatively. “She was in bad shape, but… I dunno. Maybe if there had been a doctor on call, she might’ve – ”

 

“No,” Jessalin says. Her voice is clipped, and Syrenne wonders how much she saw. “No, she was dead when I got there. Sorry.”

 

“S’okay,” Syrenne says. Funny, how she keeps saying things are okay when they’re anything but. “It’s fine. I was just… hoping, I guess.”

 

“Yeah,” Jessalin says. The tension in her body unwinds, and she seems to wilt, almost, her shoulders drooping and the taut line of her mouth relaxing into a frown. “I know what you mean.”

 

.

 

.

 

It’s three long weeks before she’s released from the infirmary.

 

Syrenne finds that she remembers very little of her time there, whether from boredom or booze she can’t rightly say. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that she’s got nowhere to go – no job, no objectives, and worst of all no place to sleep. She counts out the pittance they gave her as severance pay and guesses it’ll tide her over for about a week, if she’s willing to stay in one of the city’s shittier taverns. With some coin set aside for getting drunk, of course.

 

And getting drunk is just what she does, her first night at the Blue Moon Inn. The men there are easy to coerce – just a wink and a coy smile and they’re clamoring to buy her anything she wants. She sings some raucous shanties, and wins a few hands of cards, and makes some new friends whose names she won’t remember in the morning. Even receives some daft, cryptic advice from a bloke who calls himself a “traveling harmonica player,” which she assumes is slang for something illegal.

 

Yeah, this is the life, she thinks hazily, as the night is drawing to a close. Living in the moment. Putting aside the uncertainty of the future, at least for a time. Drinking with good people and forgetting your troubles.

 

She falls into bed as the sun is rising, and sleeps a blessedly dreamless sleep.

 

.

 

.

 

It’s Day Five of her stay at the Blue Moon Inn when _they_ arrive. Mercenaries, they call themselves, and Syrenne can’t help but laugh into her mug. The blond one looks too soft, the black-haired one too somber, and the brunet is closer to boyhood than manhood, wearing a severe expression that merely looks comical on his baby-face.

 

The blond one is also completely insufferable, she soon discovers, as he slides into the seat across from her practiced ease.

 

“Hello, beautiful,” he says with a wink. “I couldn’t help but notice you from afar. What’s your name, if I may be so bold? You a local? Or perhaps a traveler of the world like myself?”

 

Syrenne scowls at him. She’ll happily extort horny men out of money, drinks, and food, but once they start asking questions her patience is quick to run dry. And something about this smug tosser has already got her well pissed.

 

“Sod off,” she says. “Go try your little routine on some other girl. I’m not in the mood.”

 

He winces, but his broad smile doesn’t waver. “My, my,” he says. “Tetchy, are we? Had a rough day?”

 

She is about to voice some biting retort when she sees the scar. It’s old, mostly faded, curving around his jawline and down the right side of his neck. Almost perfectly x-shaped, too, which can only mean one thing:

 

It was carved there purposefully by the edge of someone’s blade.

 

Perhaps he’s not so soft after all.

 

He notices her gaze and waggles his eyebrows obnoxiously. “Sexy, right? I find it gives me an air of danger that the women just adore.”

 

“As if,” Syrenne mutters, looking away hurriedly. “…What’s the story behind that, anyway? Some bloke cut you up for stealin’ his girl?”

 

He laughs. “Close, my dear. Very close. But I’m afraid the real truth behind this scar is a tale for another time.”

 

 _Another time?_ she thinks as he walks away. After spending far too much on drinks, she’s only got enough coin for one more night in this hovel. Most likely, she’ll never see blondie and his band of ragtag “mercenaries” ever again.

 

Not that she cares, of course.

 

(Not even a little.)

 

.

 

She passes out too early that night.

 

She passes out too early and so she wakes in the still-dark hours of the morning with a pounding headache and nausea lying heavy in the back of her throat. Her room, little larger than a broom cupboard, is drenched in shadow, and yet she can still see the walls. She can see the way they seem to buckle inwards, squeezing in, pressing down from all sides like a vast fist of darkness closing around her. There’s no space, she thinks desperately, her breath coming in quick gasps. There’s no air. It’s early spring but she’s so _hot_. God, why is it so hot? She could swear she feels someone staring at her in the gloom, and if she looks hard enough she can almost see their eyes, glassy and empty and slowly fading. She can almost see the blood dripping from their lips, and hear those frantic choking sounds, getting quieter and quieter until –

 

She jumps to her feet and runs to the door on unsteady legs, flinging it open. It is not until she’s outside that the panic finally begins to leave her. She leans against the wall and takes a deep, shaky breath, waiting for her pulse to stop its mad fluttering.

 

Maybe she ought to go live out in the wilderness, she thinks. No walls out there. Nothing but open space far as the eye can see.

 

She laughs, then, and is surprised at how genuine it sounds. What a daft idea.

 

But daft idea or no, she’s in no mood to step back in a building right now, and so she picks a direction and starts to walk. She has no destination in mind. Her walking is aimless and soothing – focus on putting one foot in front of the other, she tells herself. Don’t think about anything else.

 

There are few others out in the streets at this hour. Those that are skulking about are either red-faced with liquor or faceless entirely, hoods drawn conspicuously and features cast in shadow. Syrenne wants nothing to do with the latter type, but sure enough she finds herself approached by one as she rounds a bend in the road.

 

“Oi, missy,” the faceless man hisses. “You got any gold on ye?”

 

“… Even if I did, I wouldn’t be givin’ any to the likes of you,” she says shortly. She tries to push past him but he blocks her path.

 

“You sure about that? I swear I can hear coins jinglin’ in yer pocket. I got a keen ear for these things, y’know.”

 

At this, two more cloaked figures materialize from the darkness, so that she’s surrounded on all sides.

 

Syrenne sighs. “Really, now? What’re you lot gonna do, shank me for a tuppence? Just move on; find someone else to swindle. I’ll give you more trouble than it’s worth, I promise you that.”

 

The three of them visibly hesitate, exchanging what might be a worried glance. But still they refuse to back down. The man on her right draws a knife from beneath his cloak, blade flashing in the semidarkness, and Syrenne steels herself for a fight. She’s still shaken up from her… _episode_ earlier, her nerves frayed and her reactions slow, but she can at least go down swinging.

 

And then, suddenly, there is a glass bottle smashing down on the armed thug’s head. He crumples to the ground in a split second, revealing the blond mercenary from the tavern, looking just as smug and self-congratulatory as ever. The cloaked man on her left lunges toward her, latching his arm around her neck in a chokehold. She lets him think he’s got the upper hand for a moment, then tugs on his arm with all her strength, leaning forward and flipping him straight over her shoulder. The sound of his skull hitting the cobblestones is immensely satisfying. When she glances up the third man is gone, vanished into the shadows like he had never been there at all. Bloody coward.

 

“Wow,” blondie says, with an appreciative whistle. “That was impressive. I’d hate to get on your bad side.”

 

She turns to him, scowling. “I could’ve taken them all on, y’know. I didn’t need your help.”

 

“Oh, of course, my lady.” He bows to her, mimicking a gentleman doffing his hat. “You had that situation completely under control.”

 

“Shut it,” she mutters. “What the hell’re you doing out here, anyhow? It’s nearly dawn.”

 

“I could ask the same of you,” he says. “But as for me, I was… visiting an old acquaintance, shall we say? It’s been months since we last met. We had a lot of catching up to do.”

 

Syrenne rolls her eyes. “I’ll bet. Was there much _talking_ involved in this ‘catching up,’ I wonder?”

 

He laughs. “What can I say? I, like many men before me, am a slave to the sensual indulgences of womankind. Is that such a crime?

 

“Now, as much as I’d love to continue standing around conversing with you on a dark streetcorner, I’d really prefer somewhere a little less… hazardous. Would you care to join me on my way back to the inn, my love?”

 

“… Fine,” Syrenne huffs. “But if you call me that again I swear to god I’ll put my foot up your arse.”

 

.

 

“So,” he says. “I hear you’re quite fond of your liquor.”

 

She stares at him blankly from across the table. “Yeah? And who told you that?”

 

“The barkeep, actually. Startlingly talkative guy, once you get him going. Says you’ve been in here all week, doing nothing but downing drinks.”

 

“You got a problem with that?” she asks with a sneer. “I’d say how I spend my money is my own business.”

 

“True enough.” He shrugs. “I’ve seen men get addicted to the stuff, is all. Women, too, though not as often. And almost never a pretty young thing like yourself. Can’t help but wonder what the reason is.”

 

Her hands curl into fists beneath the table, nails digging into her palms. Indignation twists and churns red-hot in the pit of her stomach. A flush of anger creeps up the back of her neck. Who the hell does this blond bellend think he is, lecturing like he’s her fucking mum? She opens her mouth to tell him off but finds her anger suddenly gone, vanished as quick as it came, the words she was about to speak withering on her tongue. Instead she merely slumps back in her chair, an indescribable weariness stealing over her.

 

“Makes it easier to forget,” she mutters.

 

Blondie’s gaze softens. “Ah,” he says quietly. “So that’s how it is.”

 

Syrenne looks away uncomfortably, folding her arms across her chest.

 

“I’ve got things like that too, you know,” he says. “Things I’d rather not remember. I’d say everyone does. But personally… I don’t think booze is the best way to go about forgetting. With alcohol you end up forgetting the good times along with the bad.”

 

“So… what?” she says. “What else is there?”

 

“There’s everything,” he says, smiling wide. “Going out in the world, seeing the sights… That’s the best way to forget your troubles, if you ask me. ‘Experience as much as you can in order to push the painful memories aside.’ Or something like that.”

 

She can’t help but chuckle, just a little. “What’re you, then, some kinda inspirational self-help guru? Traveling the countryside in search of women to shag and poor saps to give advice to?”

 

He lifts in hands in mock surrender. “Not at all, my lady. Just a humble mercenary with much wisdom to impart.

 

“And on the topic of mercenaries, I wonder… Would you have any interest in becoming one?”

 

“Becoming one?” She raises an eyebrow. “What, you invitin’ me along?”

 

“It’s merely an offer,” he says. “We could use someone with your… pragmatism in our group, if you catch my meaning. Dagran and Zael are dreamers – always going on about becoming knights someday and whatnot. Being a knight would be brilliant, of course, but it’s hardly an attainable goal for a bunch of scummy mercs. Dagran tends to set his goals too high and Zael always has his head in the bloody clouds, is what I’m saying. Another realist like myself might help to keep them in check.”

 

“… What makes you think I’m a realist?”

 

“I have a sense about these things,” he says, giving her a knowing look. “Some people just look at the world and see it the way it truly is. I can tell you’re one of them.”

 

“You don’t say,” she murmurs. A thought hits her, then, and she whips around to face him once more. “Oi, what’s your name anyhow??”

 

He looks taken aback for a moment, eyes wide and startled, and then he laughs. “Yeah, I never did introduce myself, did I? Name’s Lowell. And you, my fair maiden?”

 

“Syrenne,” she says. “And if you call me 'fair maiden' ever again I swear I’ll rearrange your fucking face.”

 

.

 

.

 

They’re leaving. She leans on the second story railing and watches them as they tarry by the door, adjusting their packs and arguing over travel expenses.

 

Being a merc is a shitty life. _Filthy sellswords_ , people say, spitting their words like they’re poison. _Would slit their own mothers’ throats for enough coin._ Everywhere mercenaries are looked down upon, avoided on the streets like they carry some disease, like their lack of loyalty might rub off on an unsuspecting do-gooder. But what’s the difference, really, between a merc and a militiaman? Between a merc and a knight, even? Is there a knight in existence who would die for their lord without hesitation?

 

Is there a knight in existence who would’ve intervened, upon seeing some vulgar low-class girl set upon by muggers?

 

“We about ready to head out?” says the black-haired one. Dagran. Lowell and the kid – Zael – nod, and Dagran reaches for the doorknob.

 

“Wait,” she calls, and the three of them glance around confusedly before finally looking up. “Just… Wait a sec, okay? Give me five minutes to get my shit together.”

 

Lowell grins, Dagran looks mildly surprised, and Zael tilts his head to the side, bewilderment written on his face.

 

“Wait?” he echoes. “Why?”

 

“Why the hell do you think, kid?” Syrenne rolls her eyes. “‘Cause I’m coming with you.”


End file.
